


Unfocused Cameras

by Silits



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Asylum, Blood, Character Death, F/M, Ghosts, Gore, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Izaya isn't an ass, M/M, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Possible Character Death, Rituals, Shizuo doesn't have his strength, Violence, YouTubers - Freeform, satanic rituals, urban expedition, urban explorers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-08-20 13:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8250710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silits/pseuds/Silits
Summary: Orihara Izaya, a 17 year old student who attends Raijin High, is a popular Urban Explorer. He travels to abandoned buildings alone, and records his adventures and posts them on youtube, under his alias Ayazi. When all his friends lose in a bet against him, they all have to travel with him to an asylum at the edge of Shinjuku that has been abandoned since the 1980s, for an overnight experience as a 'one million subscriber special'. They bring all the essentials they think that they need, cameras included. They think their preparation is enough, but what they don't realize, is that they aren't prepared for the fresh blood, paranormal occurrences, and satanic rituals waiting for them.





	1. Welcome Back

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, yea I know, another new work. Don't judge me.

"Welcome back guys! It's your favorite urban explorer: Ayazi-"

"It's your name backwards."

An almost silent 'shut up' can be heard in the background, as Izaya looked over his shoulder at the woman who had interrupted his introduction to his new video. The raven sighed and stopped the recoding to only start it back up, restarting his intro.

"Welcome back guys! It's your favorite urban explorer: Ayazi!" The cheerful voice sang out, this time not being rudely interrupted. "Today, I am with my friends from school, as they are joining me for today's adventure." Izaya proceeded to lift the tripod his camera rested on, showing the rest of students in blue Raijin uniform, apart from Kadota who had worn a black ensemble that day to school, matching with Izaya's red and black scheme. "Say hi!" 

Erika - a crazy gay fangirl, Walker - the crazy gay fangirl's friend, and Shinra - weird ass illegal crack doctor, yelled out a 'hello' from the others in the group. Celty - a mute girl who happens to be the weird ass illegal crack doctor's girlfriend, Shizuo - a yellow haired hulk, Kadota - a the normal one of the group, and Togusa - crazy fanboy of Ruri, were the ones who waved to the camera, some of them stuffing their face with snack bars, as they were laying in a field from their school, backpacks on the floor with essentials. Namie - a stuck up bitch obsessed with her little brother, just continued to retouch her makeup in her compact mirror.

"Today my dear friends will be joining me, for they lost a bet with me, and they now have to come with me to be best expedition yet! Today, we will be visiting an abandoned asylum on the outskirts of Shinjuku. It has been abandoned since the 1980's and I'm just really excited." Izaya gives the camera a big grin. "You guys may be wondering as to why it is so special since they are coming with me today, well it's because since I have finally reached ONE MILLION SUBSCRIBERS" - Erika and Walker were clapping violently in the back - "and this will be an overnight experience, something I have never done, as I am a solo-rider."  Bringing the camera down, Izaya showed the little group that was sitting in the grass, backpacks littering the other side, and phones laying on the ground. The sun was still high up in the sky, the time being three in the afternoon, school barely just letting out. No one had bothered to change into more comfortable clothes for the walk all the way to the outskirts of Shinjuju, which was a good hour and a half, maybe two hour walk. No one was about to board the subways with all those backpacks that could look suspicious. 

"We will be walking to our destination, which is pretty far. The maximum walk time could be two hour and a half, as the sidewalks of both Ikebukuro and Shinjuku are quite crowded with pedestrians, and school just let out, so that's another factor." To prove his point, Izaya faced the camera to the group of girls walking out of the front doors, laughing loudly. "So if we want to get to the asylum an hour or two before dark, we have to start walking now." There were a few groans from the group, some complaining about the walking distance and how their feet would hurt before they got to the building to explore. They might even have to scale some of the building if none of the windows or doors were open on the first floor.

"Okay, so we are carrying one backpack each, and although that may seem like a lot, it really isn't. Everyone packed an extra pair of clothes and shoes, just in case they fall into something, like mud or water wile walking the premises of the building while looking for an entrance. Umm, we also are carrying water and food, like snacks, and something to entertain ourselves. We also have sleeping bags and blankets because we don't know how cold it will be in there. Some people will be sharing sleeping bags, so not everyone is bringing one." Izaya pointed at a particular pink backpack, "and that one carries makeup because a certain someone can't go without makeup anywhere." Someone hissed a 'shut the hell up', and Izaya only chuckled. He then proceeded to point to two other backpacks which were aqua blue and a pale shade of yellow, "and those are almost filled to the brim with manga. One has action manga, and the other has pure gay sex." Someone started to choke on their water.

Cutting the frame, Izaya set up his tripod by opening it and spreading it, to hold his camera at an angle. Once done, Izaya started recoding again and joined everyone on the floor, and took out a zip-lock bag full of colorful sharpie markers. Opening it, Izaya slipped his hand inside and grabbed a handful, and pulling them out.

"Everyone will get a sharpie in their favorite color, and have to be careful to not lose them. What we will be doing with them is while going around the building, we will be writing little messages to others that will be visiting the asylum after us. They can also be used just in case if we get lost or separated from the group. We will most likely not have service for our phones, so these markers can really be useful." Putting the markers back into the bag, Izaya only was left with a black marker, and passed the bag around, so that everyone got a marker that suited their taste. Erika gushed that she got a pink sparkly marker, while Namie studied her metallic blue.  

"With that said, we should get going." That was what triggered for everyone to get up and stretch their limbs out, before walking to the backpacks on the other side and strapping them on their backs. The camera was once again stopped, and the tripod was put away into the one-shoulder sling back Izaya had for his equipment. Shizuo had offered to carry it for him, but Izaya just kindly declined the offer. The teenagers started to walk out of the schooled front gates, and out into the public sidewalk. The group walked, joking amongst themselves, while some took pictures with their digital cameras or phones, and the whole thing, Izaya had recorded it, but also joined in the harmless chatter. 

They talked about what they were expecting, saying maybe that if they were lucky, it had been demolished, and Izaya just laughed and said that he had searched up and it was in fact, still standing. Erika then started to make up scenarios of what could happen, and Togusa had jokingly said that they could find a dead body there's in which Namie had snorted and just said in return that they would have closed off the thing if that were so. Celty had said(more like wrote) that maybe it had guard dogs and they couldn't go in. Shinra just said that he would protect her from them and let her jump into an open window while he sacrificed himself for her. Shizuo had scoffed and asked as to how he managed to get a girlfriend. Then Shinra started to gush about his beautiful, perfect, and wonderful girlfriend before he was hit on his side with the side of Celty's hand hard. 

They stopped by Russia Sushi for a medium to-go order, in which they took to a park on the way to Shinjuku, to eat before they got to the building and start wasting their food supply. They threw away the carton and complementary chop sticks, and were on their way again, before they had to stop again for Togusa who said he needed to buy some water bottles. That only took about five minutes, and they were on their way once again.

When they stepped foot in Ikebukuro, it was already four fifteen, so they all decided to stop making stops. They walked a little faster, in hopes to get to the abandoned building before five. Sadly, the group was stopped by a group of ladies, and were asked as to where they were going. Izaya had quickly answered that they were going to a volleyball camp and the ladies said that it was nice that kids still walked to far destinations without the use of the subway. Everyone just stared with a bored expression, but the ladies then sent them off with a 'good luck' and 'have fun at the camp'. Then Izaya was critiqued that he came up with a volleyball camp, and then he had asked if they would rather tell them that they were traveling to an abandoned asylum that had held some crazy shit before it was shut down. No one said anything, and it was silent for about ten minutes before Erika and Walker started to argue over something, and talk started up again. 

"Okay, so we are right in front of the woods that hold the hidden and abandoned asylum. Here, " Izaya turned the camera to Shizuo who was trying to climb the heavily vined spot, and then place his bag down on the other side before helping Namie, Celty, and Erika up and back down to the other side. Shinra, Kadota, Walker and Togusa went next, with less help from Shizuo, but still enough that they would struggle without the blond's help. "Is the area we have to walk through to get to our destination." Izaya then had passed the camera to Shizuo, in which he held while he reach for Izaya's hand, while the raven stood on his tippy-toes to get over the wall. Sure, he was a parkour artist, but when he had a camera that could easily break, it wasn't the best idea, so he let the blond help him. Once on the wall, Izaya grabbed his camera as Shizuo jumped from the top of the wall grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder again. Izaya took a quick panorama from on top of the wall, before jumping off the wall and leading the group. 

It was a heavily wooded area, and that was unusual as Shinjuku was a city. The trees looked like they came out from a haunting movie, and Togusa made fun of them, which was probably then why he had been pocked in the eye from a falling branch. There were no birds in the trees on the area, and it made the whole area silent in an eerie way. Walker had popped from behind a tree randomly and scared Celty in dropping her PDA, which everyone had got a good laugh out of. 

The group took a lot of turns, and some had stressed that they would get lost when they got out of the building. There was a wall of bushes, maybe better described as a hedge, and everyone knew that that was where the building was hiding, as there was a brick building seen from the top of the messy hedge. There was a small opening, in which was made bigger for the woman to pass through before the males. This time Togusa had led the back, and had a gaping mouth when he saw the red bricked building. 

The building was at least six floors, and it was a dirty red and white. The windows were broken, and vines covered the wall heavily. There were boards covering some of the windows, a poor attempt to keep people out. The bottom windows were bricked shut, so they had to walk around a little to find what they were looking for. There was talk behind Izaya as he had grabbed the tripod and once again placed his camera on it. 

"Okay, so we have just arrived, the building is pretty big, which means there is a lot to discover. It also means, that it's easier to get lost. This building is pretty old, so that means it's much more dangerous, as I'm sure some of the flooring and ceiling have fallen through, and are week. In sure that this also has a basement, so really, it has seven floors. I'm sure that we will be finding some unique stuff in here, such as graffiti, and garbage. With garbage, comes illness, so this will be fun." Izaya walked around the premises, looking for a safe way in. Everything was pretty much sealed, and many were loosing hope until they found a suspicious looking opening in the bushes. When crawling through, they walked a little, to see an open window. There was a heater under it, so it was easy access to the opening. 

Once everyone was through the whole and eyeing the opening, Izaya turned around to look at everyone. 

"Okay, this is what we are going to do. So, I have had many experiences throughout my urban expeditions, and seen many things that can cause illness to a human. Places like these have a high risk and contain a lot of asbestos. So, to stay in the safe side, I'm going to hand everyone a mask, one that you can wear around your neck, and if you see an area on the floor or roof that has fallen or has been eaten away, place it on your face." As he was saying this, Izaya passed masks around to the members of the group, and he looped his own around his neck, and then put it on his face. "Place it on your face for right now, I'm not saying that if you have been exposed to asbestos as I have before, it will be less dangerous, but I think it's better for you guys to just walk in with them on already." Everyone put on their masks, readjusting their straps so that it was on their face secured right. Once sure everyone was wearing them on right, Izaya stepped onto the heater, and hauled himself over the window to make sure it was safe for everyone to go in.

"Alright, bring it in!" Izaya yelled, as he walked down the shirt corridor, his voice muffled by the mask on his face. "I want Kadota in next, and then the ladies." Kadota went in, ducking as he stepped over the ledge of the window, and into the room, feeling out when he stepped on glass. 

"This is why I told you to bring closed shoes." Izaya mumbled to Kadota, in which he hummed in return. Celty went up first, and she stayed close to Kadota, as she seemed to be a bit scared of the place. Erika went in next, her own camera already out and taking pictures. Namie went up and through by herself, ignoring the help that Kadota had offered her. Shinra volunteered to go next, and flipped once he stepped into the glass on the floor, marveling the dirty interior. Shizuo, and Togusa climbed in almost at the same time, and joined the rest of the group inside. It was crowded n the entrance, so they walked a little farther in to a large main room in the building, which was surprisingly not coated in dust. 

"Woah." Shinra went in a full circle as he examined the interior. "So _this_ is what you encounter every weekend?"

"We are in! It looks pretty creepy in here is you ask me, and it's a little more dirty than I would have liked, but it's something at least. We are going to explore the first floor completely, and then go to the second floor to find a place where we can place our stuff safely and settle in, before we start exploring. By then, it would be about five thirty, as we arrived a few minutes before five." Izaya continued to talk to the camera. He walked around, going in rooms and rocking around some stuff, peering into the closets to see if anything was interesting. 

"This is disgusting." Namie commented from another room, poking over some garbage herself.

"Namie, this building is abandoned. We are going to find stuff like this. I think it's interesting, actually."

"Your gross." 

Kadota commented about something in the large room, Erika replied to him with her loud voice, but no one payed attention to her. Everyone was busy looking over the stuff in the rooms, finding everything quite interesting as it was their first urban exposition.

Shizuo came up from behind Izaya and whispered into his ear, with his hands stuffed in his pockets. 

"Hey flea, isn't this unsanitary and shit?"Izaya chuckled at his tone, and shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the blond. 

"Sure. A lot of stuff happens in places like this. It's not unusual for a murder scene to occurs in places like this, or people to live in places like this." A violent shiver ran down Shizuo's spine as he groaned, hanging his head, thoroughly grossed out. 

Izaya called everyone to the big room, and placed his camera down while it was still recording. 

"Okay, so I will give some of you one of my cameras. These cameras are pretty expensive, but they are good for capturing footage, and they will be the source of your light, if you don't have a flashlight, in which I hope everyone brought." Opening the flap from his sling bag, Izaya took out another camera and handed it to Kadota, then handing one to Shinra, and told him if he recorded any crazy shit, his ass was going to be kicked. He gave another to Namie, and the last was given to Walker, in which he trusted the camera more in his hands rather than Erika's. He then went around and attached lights on top of the cameras, and taught everyone how to turn them on. The inside was already pretty dark since daylight was still shining through the windows, so everyone had turned on their lights. Izaya have a special bright light to Shizuo, as Izaya automatically called Shizuo as his partner in case something happened, and then called Namie to join them. 

"It's not like we should be separated during our stay, but in any case we do, always stay with your group. Shinra, Celty and Kadota are another group, and Erika, Walker, and Togusa are another. Strength and safety is in groups. We do not know what we will encounter in here, and we have to take precautions. Like I said before, even if the group breaks up, stay with your designated group, I can't stress this enough. I know about the crazy stuff that happens in places like this. And it's not pleasant. We might run into other people, be it good or bad." Izaya closed his sling bag and grabbed his camera once again, in which Shizuo had been holding for him. "It's okay to befriend people you meet, as I said, strength and safety is in numbers, but don't get too friendly with them. Always have your guard up."

Izaya turned to the vast room they were in, which probably had to be connected to the reception area, due to its spacious concept. 

"If anything, scream for help."


	2. Yellow Flicker Beat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Take me' in that red and smeared writing was still fresh in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any grammatical errors, I apologize in advance. I would appreciate if you called them out to me, so that I could fix them for future readers *^*

Everyone slowly dispersed in the big room, never leaving the room everyone else was in, for safety reasons. When they walked into the reception area, it was trashed. There was wood in the little room the receptionist would sit in, and there were some folded up chairs in the other side of the room. There were parts in which the ceiling was hanging loose from, and that was when Izaya had reminded them this is what they were to look for to put on their masks to keep the asbestos out and away from their lungs. There was also glass on the floor, and random bits of debris, the wall was completely blown in some areas, and there seemed to be a dry smell in the air. The very little dust that was in the place flew in the sunlight passing through the broken part of the window from the front, like as if it were shining at a particular area of interest. They had walked from the reception area to another room that was connected, to a place that was a corridor, with stairs that held double doors, which were probably the front doors of the building. They decided to go into the other room across from the one they were currently in to only find another part of the waiting room. Izaya had dared to walk into the little room that also happened to be a reception area.

"So apparently, this side of the reception area is for people who would go to to pick up someone, and the other side is when you drop someone off, or when someone has to come in for an emergency like a surgery being done at a patient here. Izaya said from the little room, sounding even more distant that with his mask on his face. "And- hey! They have a wrecked up type writer here." Erika was the first to peer into the little window of the room Izaya was in, and giving off a noise of interest as she bounced in her spot, pointing at something. Shinra was not too far from her and actually went into the room the raven had gone in. It was indeed old, and it was all wrecked up. Some keys were missing, and the top part that held the paper was completely and cleanly ripped off. 

From there, everyone went back into the hallway, and they started walking down the little extension, when they saw a shattered glass box that had been previously on a wooden stand. There were rocks and plants scattered on the floor, and Namie had concluded that it must have been a fish tank before it was destroyed. No one really poked around much for that, and they continued their way down the hallway, looking at billboards that were drawn all over, spraypaint decorating the walls, spelling out profanities and many drawings of the the male reproductive organ, in which Walker found funny. Soon they arrived at the end of the hallway, that split into three hallways. One that went horizontally, and the other continued from across the hallways they were just walking down from. 

"The A Ward." Izaya was looking up at a sign on the wall that was red, with characters on it that were mostly faded, but we're still a bit legible. "Where to now?" Izaya had turned and looked at the rest of the group. "We have two options. One, explore the whole first floor which would probably take a half an hour to forty five minutes, in which it will be dark by the time we are finished, or, two, look for a way upstairs to find a safe place to put our stuff down to and get settled in while there is still daylight, to come back down and explore the rest."

After some discussing, they came to the decision to find a way upstairs and set their stuff down, and come back down. They also thought that it would be easier to look for the stairs now in daylight, so when it's already dark they won't struggle to get up the stairs, or even find them. And they could also set up more sufficiently in the daylight, and they wouldn't have to worry about stepping into a hole with heavy backpacks on their backs. So, that was what they were doing. Looking around for a set of stairs. They went down the right hallway, Izaya saying that there should be a stairwell at the ends of the building. 

"So right now we are looking for a stairwell so that we can settle down, a-and go around and explore the other six floors of this thing! I really want to see a morgue here, as I have only ever seen one, but it was all destroyed. And I had gone through the trouble to see it. It'll be a bonus if it's bloody." There was a sound of someone gagging in the background, and Izaya had looked over his shoulder to only start laughing at the face that Celty had been making, as she tightly held onto Shinra's right arm.

"Do they even have morgues in asylums?" Namie had piped up from the back, looking down at her nails as she filed them. She didn't even seem in the little bit interested with their adventure. Izaya only frowned at that, but shrugged it off as he felt Shizuo's shoulder brush with his. 

"It wasn't uncommon for patients to die in the asylums. They did surgeries to people here, the doctors and nurses were not kind to the patients that needed help." Togusa made a disapproving comment of such treatment. "Okay, little history lesson. People were brought to asylums because they were mentally ill, and since hospitals hadn't yet had Psychiatric Wards, they brought people to these places called asylums, where patients would stay for an indefinite time. They were only allowed to bring so little personal items, and it's not like now, in which they are giving a locker to keep their things in. They put their things in their rooms in the dormitory room, which was really just a huge room with curtains dividing the little 'rooms' that just held a bed and night table, that is, if you were lucky. It depends on how crazy you were. If you were really crazy, you didn't even get that, you were locked up.

"They would put patients in rooms either in the basements in the bottom of the asylum, or in little cells in the upper levels. This was when psychiatrists had to be careful and be kept at a safe distance from the patient, that could attack them because they were unhappy from their room arrangements, though many doctors had constantly declined that that was it. Patients could have surgeries to their heads and brains, if the doctors deemed it necessary, and patients could very easily die from that. Don't even get me started on what the poor people were operated on. Let's just say... they were strapped down on an uncomfortable chair. Their legs and ankles, wrists and arms, and even their head." Celty tapped Izaya shoulder, and he turned around, staring at the screen at his face.

[Didn't people know that this was going on?]

"Well, no one really knew this was what was going on in places like this. People though that the patients had died because God didn't deem them well enough to get well, so they were killed. Many people died in places like this, and usually very violently. There are many distressed spirits, as they say, because they are unhappy with how they died. That's why people say that asylums are haunted no matter if they are in use or not. I mean, patients weren't the only people killed in places like this. Sometimes patients would revolt against the doctors and would kill them, even through they knew what would happen to them after that wouldn't be pleasant. Death rate was quite high, even though asylums are supposed to be facilities in which are used to help people get better, and not mistreat them and kill them because they were different. I think people with schizophrenia were killed the most, but I'm not sure." It was silent for a little bit before Shizuo tapped his shoulder.

"Then why is there a morgue here. I don't see how this has to do with anything." There were a few chuckles from behind them.

"Shizu-chan-"

"Don't call me that-"

"Do you even know what a morgue is?" Izaya gave Shizuo a side-long glance, a smirk playing at his lips. Shizuo fumbled with his words, fidgeting with the special light in his hands.

"W-well y-y-yea. It was- is a thing you u-use when someone dies." Izaya playfully pat Shizuo's head after that, laughing when his hand was swatted away.

"Yes, that is correct. But since there was a lot of death in places like this, they needed a morgue to prepare the bodies for them to be taken away. You know, drain out the blood, take out the organs, and freeze the body." Izaya thinks he heard Celty gag again. 

By the time that conversation was done, they had found a door that had a 'stairwell' on a little red sign similar to the one they saw before. It was a little rusty to pull it open, so Shizuo being the closest, opened up the door with two hard tugs. The noise the door made against the floor as it was pulled open was high pitched, and it made everyone clench their teeth together at the painful noise; that door defiantly needed som oil. 

When they caught glimpse of the room, dust heavily hung from the ceiling, patches of rust clung to the floor, the white flooring itself quite dirty. The silver areas of the stairs were lifting off of the floor, a hazard right there.

"Watch for the stairs." Even though Izaya hadn't specified what area of the stairs, everyone knew that he meant the metallic part of the runners. There was no railing to the stairs, so it was very easy for someone to fall, something Izaya had hoped no one would fall in the future. Although there was no railings, no one had really took precautions for the missing wall, but more for the hazard of falling face foreword and maybe losing a couple of teeth. The stairwell in itself felt pretty sturdy apart from the few things that could probably kill someone, but he didn't think that anyone in the group was stupid enough to hurt themselves like falling down the stairs, or maybe even up. 

The door at the top of the stairs was easier to open, and the second level was more like the first one, but it seemed dirtier. Granted, they hadn't explored the rest of the area of the first floor, but it was surely like the rest. As the group made their way down another hallway, Togusa had commented how there were some tiles broken and cracked, and Walker had made a crude joke that wasn't even worth mentioning. Erika had almost tripped over thin air, and Namie had been walking by and her bag had been pulled and got all pissy. Kadota had broken up the tension between the girls, when Kadota had commented about a good looking room to set their stuff down. The door was spray painted on, as it was slightly open, so it had been easy to see into the room from the hallway they were in. The hallway that the room was in was particularly dark, but no one had paid mind to it since the cameras Izaya had handed out had strong lights at the top.

"'We can see you', huh. What a message." Izaya had commented under his breath, but he still continued to open up the door, to only be met with a properly lit room that was much cleaner than the other rooms that they had encountered before. No one had through that they would find a room this particularly quick, so kudos to Kadota who had the sharp eye and suggested this room. "So this is the room that will be holding our stuff? I don't think that it's bad, as I do not believe that we will find a better room to hold our stuff." Izaya looped his finger over the top of his mask and pulled it down, taking a breath of fresh air, before unceremoniously dropping his bookbag to the ground, and taking off his sling bag and taking it off, placing it on the ground safely, unlike his bag. Everyone else followed what he was doing, and placing their things down, and those who brought sleeping bags took them out and placed them on the floor, next to people they wanted to sleep with. Walker and Erika were sharing, Togusa and Kadota were sharing as well. Shinra and Celty, was already a given, and Namie defiantly wasn't going to share with anyone. Shizuo had looked around the room, and the only one other person who brought a sleeping bag that could share was... heat flooded Shizuo's cheeks. Shizuo forgot to bring his own, it completely slipped his mind. He could feel his mind start to jumble as he watched Izaya bend over to rummage through his bag to pull out a bottle of water and take a sip from the bottle, vermillion eyes met mocha, and Izaya removed the bottle from his lips to smile and wave at Shizuo. The blond quickly turned around and pretended to look for something in his bookbag, when a familiar voice sounded right next to him.

"Where is your sleeping bag Shizu-chan?" Shizuo could only feel a shiver travel up his spine. Not even daring a glance at the raven next to him, Shizuo pretended to look a little baffled. 

"I-I... I can't find it. I swore I put it in." Shizuo gulped silently.

"Oh, well you could have just said so. We can share, I don't mind." Shizuo could only sigh. Guess there wasn't anything he could do, unless he stayed up all night wondering the halls with the raven, who probably wouldn't mind. Besides, what was so bad about sharing with Izaya?

When everyone had settled down, now since the backpacks were much lighter, it was easier to more around. Even Namie had taken out her makeup, and that was something. Everyone had taken a fresh bit of air since they had taken off their masks, but they all had to place their masks back on their faces, as no one wanted to get sick from consuming too much asbestos. No one seemed extremely happy to put back on their masks, as they did kind of get in the way, but it saved their health. No one wanted to get lung cancer this early in their lives, or at all.

Shuffling back into the dark hallway, the group had walked back from the hallway they had previously walked through to get back to the stairs. It was only a few minutes until they were back downstairs and walking through the other hallways they had neglected before. They had only stopped a few steps in the adjacent corridor, all nine pair of eyes eying the flickering light that hadn't been on before, at least, Izaya doesn't remember it being on?

"Was that on before?" Shinra had asked, the same mindset as Izaya, as someone from the group shown their own flashlight at the flickering light from above. It was a frantic flickering, and slowed down, until once again it was a rapid flickering. 

"Reminds me of a heartbeat." The voice belonged from someone in the group, but no one could put a finger on it, as everyone stared at the fluorescent light.

"Common guys. It's just a flickering light, nothing bad. Ignore it." Izaya started to walked once again, but looked over his shoulder when he only noticed that Namie had been the only one following him. "Or do you want something to pop out at you while we both continue on without you?" Izaya had joked lightly, but surprisingly everyone snapped out of their daze and complied with their 'tour guide'. The hallway was slightly dark, so everyone was careful not step into something like a rusty nail that could go through the bottom of their shoe and stab them, or glass in which they could slip on. There were many rooms in the long hallway, so everyone had dispersed, so it was easier to move to and from rooms to others across the hallway that other members were inspecting. They all looked somewhat the same, so no one took a lot of time to inspect, it was more like a glance around the room and back out. That went out for a while, until they got to the end of the hallway. It was when they were at the last four rooms that it was heard.

A scream.

A really loud scream.

Izaya was the first to run into the room that the scream had come from, before other bodies had crashed into his from behind, almost toppling him over onto the dirty floor.

"What happened!?" The raven's voice sounded out of breath from being run into, but looked up through his bangs to see Erika pointing at.... a dead rat.

"Are you kidding, Erika? We thought something bad happened to you." Togusa had complained from the back.

"Don't scream like your in agony next time, will you?" Kadota ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily.

"At least it was a rat and not something else." Namie had commented boringly from next to Izaya.

Erika had to be coaxed out of the room by Walker, saying that if she didn't step out that second, he would burn all of her Kuroshitsuji Doujinshis, in which she had squawked and ran right out of the room, and almost running over Izaya who had complained about everyone running into or over him. 

After that, nothing had really sparked much interest, the first floor was exactly the same throughout the whole floor, so when they had finished the first level, many had been left a little disappointed. Izaya had complained that they hadn't found a door leading to the basement, but had said that he would go back down at dark to look for the door that had to be down there. The second floor opposite of the area they had been previously, was much darker than the rest of the building, and it wasn't even dark yet. Some of the males had decided to play pranks of the girls and make them scream. Izaya had popped out at Namie and she had smacked him so hard, even the other males had grimaced at the sound of skin hitting skin. Of coarse, the other male had complained his ass off at the others, but they all had had a good laugh at the misfortune of the raven's. 

It was sometime when they entered one of the rooms in the second level when it happened.

The knocking from another room across the hall from where the whole group - or most of the group apparently - was getting quite annoying, and Kadota had been the one to call it out. When Izaya looked around, he counted everyone to see who it was that was being a nuisance, but paused when he counted all nine heads, including his. Thinking that he had counted wrong, Izaya started by counting himself and then the others, to only count nine once more. After the third count, Izaya was sure that it wasn't him doing a miscalculation. Looking around the room to see that everyone of his friends was indeed with him in the room, no unfamiliar face nor structure, so Izaya had slowly stood up and walked to the doorway of the room his group was currently occupying. 

"Hello?" 

Izaya's voice made everyone stop in their tracks, looking at him with confusion written on their faces. The other members weren't the only thing that stopped. The constant knocking from the room across them had stopped too. It was eerily silent. Even their muffled breathes was silent.

"Hello?" Izaya tried again, this time taking a step towards the room that had held the constant knocking. Pressing his body against the door and resting his hear onto the cool door, listening for any noise or indication that someone was in there. Not a peep. The raven slowly turned the knob of the room, and creaking it open, to find that it was completely empty. Stepping in it completely, he did a complete survey of the room, and surely, it was completely empty. "It suddenly got cold in this room." Izaya mumbled into the silence, feeling a shiver run up his spine, the skin on his fingers prickling. "I could have sworn on my mothers grave that the knocking was coming from in here." Looking around into the closets, his eyes centered onto a box that had writing, something that read like 'take me' written in something red and it was smeared. 

Walking up to the window in the room, red eyes peered out into the slowly darkening world outside, the moon slowly making an appearance even before the sun had set down. Taking a last look of the room, Izaya only shrugged everything off as his imagination, before walking back out and closing the door behind him.

[What happened?] Celty was the first to ask. Izaya only shrugged and looked back into the room he had previously been in.

"I don't know. The knocking, I could have sworn that it was from across the hall. Maybe it was one of us and I through it came from that room. Nothing was in there though, so it also could have been my imagination." Izaya once again shrugged to prove his point, and turned down to the rest of the corridor. "Let's continue."

No one else had asked what had happened, as it probably would have happened to any of the anyways. Besides, anyone could consider Izaya a professional at this kind of stuff as he has been doing this for years, so he knows what he is doing. It was nothing to get worked up about, especially something as silly as that. He misjudged didn't he? He hadn't even the only one to hear the knocking, everyone knew that, Kadota had even told them to stop. It was probably Erika, who in fact, was giggling the whole time. Wouldn't be a surprise if it had been her- nope it was her, no doubt about it. That chick was always up to no good, no wonder she hasn't dated anyone yet.

The group had to be cautious, as there were many boards of wood laying loose on the ground and glass from God knows where. There were water bottles that Celty stepped on and almost slipped, but of coarse, Shinra had been there to help her. Shizuo would sneeze because Izaya kept shining the light in his eyes, and causing reflex upon Shizuo, and make the poor faux blond sneeze while the raven would laugh at Shizuo's failure to stop his reflexes. Chatter was ever present in the group, and by the time they had gotten to the end of the hallway they had been in, dark had already casted it's veil on the asylum causing everything to be all the more creepy. The room they were inspecting now was a surgical one, and lucky for them, it still had the chair and tray in it. It looks like one that would be in a dental office, but it had restrains for all four limbs, and it was in a vast room, which had a glass wall on one side to let other people see while the surgery had commenced. 

"That's really fucked up." Togusa had commented, his face squished against the glass peering into the room. 

"No kidding." Kadota joked, the face he wore a little disgusted. "Thank whatever that I never had to experience something like that."

The room beside it had other materials, and the window was open, letting in fresh air from outside. They found syringes, medical wear, pills, and so on. 

"Can't believe they left this kind of stuff here." 

Walker had placed his phone on the window sill after he was done taking pictures, and he hadn't placed it correctly, so when it started to tip to crash to the floor, Izaya quickly went to his knees to catch the electronic, to only miscalculate-

"Ah!" 

Was it the third time? Yes, it was the third time in the whole day that the group kept silent as the scene in front of them unrolled itself. The only noise was the soft _pitter_ and _patter_ of liquid hitting cardboard. 

"S-shit." Izaya slowly put down his camera to stick his finger into his mouth to only hiss in pain. Shinra was the first one to rush to Izaya, shrugging off his bag and told Celty to look for his bandages and disinfectant. Red liquid cascaded down slim fingers, collecting at the palm and dripping down to the cardboard underneath. "Hey, at least Walker's phone didn't break." Shinra could only roll his eyes as he wiped Izaya's fingers with alcohol, and then wrapping each finger that was cut individually, so the raven could still use his left hand. "Oops?"

"Dumbass." Shizuo smacked Izaya upside the head, causing a yelp from the other in return.

When Shinra was done wrapping the fingers up, everyone had concluded that the room that they were in wasn't safe, not like it ever was but...

The rest of the second floor just happened to be more surgical rooms, and there was a security room in which Walker got tangled with wires. The middle area wasn't a hallway, but rather, a testing area in which they tested blood, urine, flesh, and that sort of things. They found suspicious looking tubes in there, and Shinra had joked that one of them looked like it had semen inside, in which he was hit on the side by Celty for that. Fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling, and there was a huge whole in the ceiling, and they could see the third floor through it. And it was in a hallway too. There was blood on the wall, in which Celty had freaked out over, and Namie had looked more into it, then saying that it was actually rust that had been smeared on. She took a sample, as she was a scientist in her free time, and put it in a little bag that was in her bookbag, and continued to rummage through the lockers that seemed to once belong to the scientists that worked there. There was a freezer that was empty, and it shouldn't have been cold, but it was. That was eerie enough on its own. A fan started moving on its own, and there was no windows in the room, so it couldn't have been the air, and as creepy as it was, everyone else had ignored it. When there was a loud bang from the other end of the room, it was because Erika dropped something, and Shizuo got embarrassed because he had kind of yelped in fear from the noise. 

"We are in some sort of testing area right now, and there are some really creepy things in here, such as dolls and stuff. I'm trying not to pick up anything with my left hand until it stops pulsing. I'm letting Shizu-chan do all of that work for me. He also got scared because something fell earlier and he looks like a tomato right now."

"Shut up." Shizuo grumbled. Izaya only laughed at his antics and faced the camera again.

"We have to check the big room across from this one, don't know what it could be but it looks pretty cool from here." Izaya turned the camera to Namie who was hovering over a testing set, poking around and she seemed to be taking notes. Not wanting to disturb her, Izaya went to the computers that were in the corner, looking at the old models. "Must have been a pain to use these."

Everyone stopped in their tracks when something fell in another room. Mainly, the room across from them. Being the curious one, Izaya crossed the hallway to poke his head into the quiet room. It was certainly very dark, and trying to see what had caused the noise like that all of a sudden. Stepping into the garbage at the entrance, another shiver like earlier ran down Izaya's spine as he took another step inside. A knocking noise started randomly in the room that seemed to echo around. Just like the one from before. Sharp eyes stared into the dark, moving the light on top of the camera around to get a better view of everything. Izaya thought he had spotted something in the corner of the room when a hand grabbed onto his shoulder. Izaya screamed and turned around quickly loosing his footing to only see a perplexed Shizuo and Shinra. Chuckling nervously, Izaya rubbed the back of his neck. 

"Ha ha ha... sorry... I though... never mind." What exactly had he thought? Izaya asked himself. There was no one else apart from them in there, and it wasn't like rats didn't live in places like that. He was certain that it was the rats messing with them. When a hand had been extended to the raven, he gratefully took it and stood right back up. Apparently, the room that the noises came from was actually too messy to go in without anyone hurting themselves, so going to the third floor was the only thing that they could do now. 

As the group started leaving the corridor, Izaya stood his ground and stared into the room, in the corner that he had sworn that he had seen something. His eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes trained on that spot, but nothing appeared out of thin air. It had just been his imagination. They were alone. No one else was there apart from them. And it was the rats making those noises, so there was nothing to worry about. Still, the thought of two eyes looking into his for a split second was a little overwhelming. It sent a shiver to his core, even though Izaya was completely certain that they were alone. His hand wrapped around the objects in his pockets that he remembered picking up earlier that day in the room. The room that the knocking had come from. 

'Take me' in that red and smeared writing was still fresh in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol not going to spoil the next chapter, but I don't think that there will be any deaths yet as it would be way too early for that.
> 
> But yea, I think that this book will have 14 chapters, but I'm not sure. If I do end up changing it, I will notify you guys.
> 
> Chapter name inspired by Yellow Flicker Beat by Lord


	3. Oh Withering Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why did this happen? Why were they there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this seems rushed, it isn't though. Things like this happen quite quickly, as I have done my research watching many videos. Eep.

How did it end up like this? What had happened? Just a few minutes ago, they had been all together. Now, the building felt unnaturally cold.

 

 

"Erika! Don't touch that!" Kadota had called out, as she has bended down to touch a piece of glass, it had something black on it, and she had been about to touch it before Kadota had caught her. She complained, saying that it was harmless, but no one knew what that black thing was, why would she touch something so foreign in this foreign atmosphere?

After leaving the big rooms that they had been in before, the ones with such mess, Izaya could only feel like something was burning holes into his back, like a glare. The raven would throw a glance over his shoulder every now and then, feeling extremely paranoid as everyone continued to make noise ahead of him. He felt shivers run through his body several times, like when he was walking, the air was warm, and for a second a sudden freezing air surrounded him and would leave. Izaya never felt such sudden drastic change in the temperature in the places he had visited in his urban exploration history. It was slightly unnerving and it made him feel all paranoid. So, when a hand dug itself in his hair, the thin raven jumped, quickly whipping his head around to see what it had been, to only see a blond looking right back at him.

"What are you so interested about behind you?" The taller boy had asked, falling in step with the explorer, looking over his own shoulder to see absolutely nothing that looked even the slightest interesting. Izaya had only shrugged, purposefully bumping into the other, who tripped over thin air at the movement. Izaya snorted, then chuckled as the blond's face started to collect heat. "Don't do that." His voice seemed muffled, even though he was right in front of the raven. The blond was so easy to mess with, sometimes it wasn't even funny, but just plain sad. Although he was smiling, Izaya sent one last glance behind him, feeling as if the paranoia grow stronger suddenly, but ignored it when Shizuo had told him to pick up his ass and walk faster.

"Take a look at this." Shinra had commented, as he stepped into a room, as it was spraypainted all over the place. There were many symbols of a star in a circle, upside-down crosses, a moon and star, a triangle, and an A in a circle. Celty took a picture with her PDA and went to take a closer look at the star in a circle. It was all in red, a red that looked like blood. Sayings like 'you can't hide', 'the other side', and 'watch out' were also written on the walls, the font big and bubbly for the weird wordings. 

Namie had taken a picture with her phone as well, and slipped it back into her bag, before walking back out into the hallway. There wasn't much to see apart from that, so the group moved onto another room, that looked burned down and had a single burned bed in it. The walls were black and grey, and ash had collected on the floor. It was miracle, as it seemed that the walls and floors had been the only things licked in flames, and the ceiling looked free from burn marks. The next thing they had seen was a bathroom.

"Ew." Someone had commented, as they walked into the dirty room. By the sinks, there were a few lockers, open and with weird things inside them, stuff no one had dared to investigate. The sinks were rusted brown and orange, a weird smell coming out of the drain, while the mirrors over them were cracked and dirtied in between. The mismatched tile floor and chipping white wall gave it a unique aura, which made them wonder in further. It was Togusa who had gagged. 

"Fucking hell! The toilet is so nasty! I don't even want to know what is in there." Indeed, there was something brown in there, the water green, and it had a tab big of red in it. There seemed to be something dead floating in it, but it was hard to make it out. Celty almost puked so she had to run right out with Togusa, while Namie merely glanced at it before looking out the boarded window. Crickets could be heard, the only noise from outside that could be heard, no barking nor cat hissing. Just the sweet usual melody from the insects that sang. 

Erika took out her marker and drew on the wall, writing some characters over it and laughed while Walker added to her drawing. They were little representations of themselves, saying to each other stupid things about the bathroom, and even Shizuo rolled his eyes at their idiocy. When the two were done goofing around, they started to walk out, when Kadota pointed over to the lockers that they had seen before.

"Yo. Wasn't three of them open when we came in here?" The grey, dirty, rusted lockers that they had passed form before, we're all closed. Indeed, there had been a few of the doors open when they walked in, which was why no one had dared to go closer because whatever was in there looked absolutely revolting, and no one really wanted to find out what was in there. Izaya quirked a brow, before walking over to the lockers and tugging one of the ones that had been previously open, only for it to be locked. Handing the camera to Shinra who had walked closer, the raven gave a harder tug for it to make a grunting noise, but it still did not budge open. Izaya had sworn that that one was open. Before it had something white in it, he remembers glancing at it, but now it was locked tight, and even his hardest tugs couldn't open the rusted metal.

"Damn." Letting go of the handle, Izaya gave it a kick at the bottom, and he was about to turn away when it slowly started opening on its own. The high, slow creaking noise sent a shiver to his core, and watched as it opened slowly with that horrifying sound. No one had spoken as it opened, and even Togusa and Celty had popped their heads in to see what exactly was going on in the bathroom that was taking them so long. Izaya could only stare at where he had kicked it, his mind trying to figure out as to how that worked but his pulling didn't.

"Guess Orihara needs to work out more." Togusa was the one who said it, and the group erupted into laughter, and a bright blush dusted the raven's features as he shielded his face with his bangs, slowly taking his camera from Shinra's grip.

When they entered back into the hallway, they continued to walk down in the darkness, their lights lighting the way through the dark corridors. So far, no one had really tripped over anything, apart from Shizuo, who had for no apparent reason, so that was a good sign. So far, the only one who had gotten hurt, was himself. Remembering his wound, the explorer looked down at his fingers at the white bandages that had slight pink blotches, but apart from that, it seemed like the bleeding had stopped. He still felt his pulse at his fingertips, but that was easy to ignore, as he had a group to joke around with and a blog to keep up with.

Izaya turned around the camera for it to face him, and got closer to Celty, who gave a peace sign and waved while smiling.

"This trip just seems to get more and more interesting doesn't it? I feel like there is so much ahead of us tonight, I just can't wait! I feel excited still, and I can't keep still. This place just gives me the creeps. It's so cool." Celty had given him a weird look, but shook her head after with a soft smile on her lips. "The others seem to be waiting for something cooler and creepier. I'm sure that they get it s-" as the sentence was being said, a light over head flicked on from behind them. The group had stopped, and turned around to look up at the fluorescent light that was flickering. Just like the one downstairs. 

Just liked the one downstairs. 

The flickering once again resembled a heartbeat, fast and frantic as if it were running.

"-oon." Izaya finished his sentence in the awkward silence, while his eyes also were pinned to the light flickering above. Worst thing about these hallways were, they weren't big enough. They could at least fit two people and a half walking side by side. Maybe even less depending on how big someone was. How this came into though at a moment like this? What if they had to run for some reason? Everyone would just rush without thinking, and it would get really crowded. Shit, maybe Izaya should have thought this whole overnight thing more carefully. "It's nothing. Just a light. Let's just... continue." Izaya pivoted and walked through the group, grabbing into Shizuo's wrist for a second, pulling him along with him for a second, for him to catch his drift. He stumbled a bit, but seems to get what the raven had wanted.

"Oh uh, yea. We already saw a light before doing this. I don't see the difference." Shizuo's voice even sounded ridiculous in such awkwardness, but it seemed to do the trick as everyone else snapped out of it, also slowly pivoting and walking once more, just throwing a few glances over their shoulders. Izaya didn't blame them, that had been creepy, but it was just a light flickering, and it happened to be when they were in the hall, it wasn't such a big deal. 

The group had resumed walking, but there wasn't much talk, it was mostly silent. Most were probably trying to still get over the shock of what just happened, so it wasn't abnormal. If was just a light, yes, but having one just randomly start flickering and an abandoned place? Izaya on the other hand, had already seen stuff like that. Lights flickering on their own, things moving on their own, things changing on their own, and the thing was that when he experienced all of that stuff, he had been alone. They were lucky that they had so many people at the moment, because he was sure that they would have freaked out if they had been walking alone down the hallway. The others don't have the experience that they had, so Izaya didn't get mad that they overreacted for almost everything. Like when he cut himself. He has already done that before, and the others had freaked, but it wasn't as bad as they all thought it was. The only real threat here, was the asbestos. Lucky that Izaya had brought masks with him. 

Oh, that's right, he was wearing a mask. Izaya took his off, letting it rest around his neck, as he readjusted the fabric around his neck. He had wrapped a red fabric around his throat just in case if he somehow lost his mask, as it has happened before. 

Murmuring started once again, and Izaya felt relieved that they were finally breaking the awkward silence. The turn to the next hallway was weird, as it was somehow blocked, but they continued after everyone went through, and they made way to an even darker hallway. This hallway was unique though. It seemed more complicated. It had other corridors in that one hallway, like in modern hospitals. Where do the other hallways lead to though? There weren't many other places that they could, so they must lead to a special room of some sort or something like that. Izaya wasn't the only one thinking that it seemed, as Erika had been pointing at them as well. As they got closer to the intersection, they looked through the doorways into the rooms. They didn't exactly look very interesting, so they continued to walk right passed them, until they stood in the middle of where both hallways met and split up. Kadota was about to say something when something cracked.

It was a loud crack, yet it was somehow muffled. Izaya looked down the other hallways to see if had come down from neither of them, and was about to look behind him when another even louder one sounded. The ground beneath them suddenly got softer in a way, and Izaya was barely able to push both him and Shizuo out of the way before the floor caved in below them. The others were lucky to jump to another part of a hallway, and no one had fallen through, but now they had a big problem. There was a random hole in the ground and it was big, so it was dangerous to try and jump over it. 

"Everyone seems to be in their groups. Except for Namie." It was such a coincidence that everyone ended up with the group Izaya had assigned them to, except it wasn't as coincidental that Namie ended up being all on her own. It was never a good thing in these big buildings, especially in the dark. 

"Ah. Okay guys um... we need to find a way to get over this thing. Or, maybe meet up back in the room that we settled in. It's probably too dangerous to jump, and these hallways must lead to some place that we can meet back up in. I should have seen this coming... uh... I think that this has been enough exploring today." Izaya groaned, looking at the mess that was standing right in front of him. "This floor seems to have a different plan than the others. Find a way to get to our room. As fast as you can. I want all of you there by the time we have to leave in the morning. It should't take that long, but just in case. And Namie, remember, scream if anything happens." She wore a bored face, with her arms crossed under her bust.

"Yea, cause you'll defiantly be there to help me." A sour mood seemed to hover over Namie's head, but a hand to the small of the raven's back reassured him. 

Izaya didn't want to just suddenly separate from the team. The floor just caved in not even a minute ago, but they had to team up once again to go to sleep back in their room. 

"And it had to happen like, right now?" Erika had commented.

'This is a bad idea', a little voice said in his head, but he ignore it. He could only sigh once more. How did this happen?

"One last thing. Don't break my cameras. Please. I don't want to leave so suddenly, because this just happened, but we need to regroup as fast as we can. Being separated is actually really dangerous. I know all of you have a way to get back to the room. Hopefully, the time should be twenty minutes tops that we'll see each other again." Kadota only nodded with what Izaya said. He didn't seem like he wanted to leave the rest of the group either, but they needed to get back to the room. That was their mission right now. 

It took a few minutes, but the group dispersed, and Shizuo and Izaya were left standing in their piece of the hallway alone. Shizuo opened his mouth to say something, before he was pushed into a room. The blond gasped, almost tripping over something, before he caught himself before he could fall backwards and potentially hurt himself.

Looking down at what had pushed him, mocha orbs met vermillion, which had a little twinkle in their eye. That was never a good sign, Shizuo knew that by heart. Couldn't they have a little break? They just got separated from their group quite quickly. The other had no idea what the shorter one was doing though. They had to get going and meet with the group again, relax, and take it easy. Go back home to their families tomorrow, well, at least most of them, while Shizuo would stay at Izaya's house on Saturday. Yet, the mischievous glint that the other's eyes carried sent a shiver down the blond's spine. 

"What a coincidence really. As bad as this situation is, we happen to be alone. Oh me oh my, what are we going to do?" It was sarcastic, but Izaya smirked, his camera already on the random chair that was beside them, his hands traveling up the chest of the blond's, before they settled on broad shoulders, pulling the raven up to get to a more eye-to-eye look with the blond. 

"Nothing to keep us entertained." 

As he said those words, Izaya let one of his hands travel behind the blond's neck, and burry his fingers in the soft blond locks at the base of Shizuo's neck, giving them a hard tug, in which the older hissed, his hands flying to familiar hips absentmindedly. Izaya hooked his finger into Shizuo's mask on his face, bringing it down and letting it rest around the blond's neck.

"Oops."

"Izaya." It was supposed to sound like as if he was chastising the other, but it came out rather breathy. The complete opposite what the blond had wanted. 

"Mmhmm..." Red eyes were lidded, the others face closer than normal, but the blond didn't flinch away. After all, it's not like he hadn't been thinking of it before. Izaya's lips inched closer and closer, his pink tongue flicking out to lick his lips, making them slightly catch the light that the moon provided them through the window. Mocha orbs stared at the soft plump lips that got closer to his, slightly parted and calling out to him. Lips were merely centimeters away from each other, the dark of the room making everything all the better. Their lips were about to brush when something skidded to their feet, hitting Shizuo's foot, in which he had growled, not exactly happy that they had been interrupted. The arms that the raven had around his shoulder dropped, to watch Shizuo bend over to grab the light that had been thrown at them on the floor.

"Very funny guys." Shizuo had called out, forgetting that the floor had separated their group. Izaya looked at Shizuo with eyes of shock, to quickly grab the object in the blond's hands to get a better look at it. After a glance, Izaya opened the door to the room that they had been in wider, and stepped out.

The air outside in the hallway was cooler than before, once again the unnatural sudden temperature drop.

"Hello? I know someone is out there. This isn't funny." Izaya had quite enough of the hiding and pranking that these other people were pulling on them. "Hello? _Hello_? Stop hiding." It still was silent, and Izaya felt a hand at his side, so he looked at Shizuo over his shoulder to realize... he wasn't standing anywhere near him. Izaya's stomach dropped, as he quickly stepped away from the doorframe and tripped over thin air, slipping and falling backwards, being caught just in time by Shizuo before he hit the ground. His blood was cold, and his heart was beating fast. His eyes were wide, and it felt like his skin had just been burned, the prickling sensation making his vision slightly darken at the edges, his heart still in his throat, blood pumping in his ears.

That was just his imagination. No one had actually touched him. Shizuo was the only other person in the room. It was nothing. Just his imagination.

"What happened?" Shizuo asked, picking Izaya up, completely ignoring the light that he had dropped in his hurry to catch the falling informant. Setting the raven down across from him, Shizuo put his hands on the others shoulders, hearing his erratic breathing. Feeling his touch, Izaya jumped, slightly yelping before having his hands fly to his mouth to cover it, cheeks slightly flushing at his stupid reflex. His eyes had flown to the doorway, just feeling dread at looking at the spot that he had been standing just a few messily seconds prior. It was nothing to worry about, it was just his mind playing tricks on him. "Did you see something? What's wrong?"

As ever, the blond was trying to calm the younger who was freaking out, trying to get his heart rate under control. There was no reason to just freak out for nothing. 

That's right, it was his mind. Having calling out others for their for their pranks, his mind played its own prank on him.

"It's nothing. It was my imagination." Izaya shook his head as he spoke, after taking his hands away from his mouth, leaving them to rest on the cool tile below him. "Let's continue. We have to find the others." Izaya quickly said again, cutting Shizuo's chance to ask. The raven pushed himself up, not looking down to see Shizuo looking up at him from his place on the floor, and proceeded to put the mask back on his face, not too fond about the aspect of breathing a lot of asbestos, especially since a rather large whole had just separated them from their friends. It was guaranteed that there was much asbestos in the air at the moment. Having see the other do it, Shizuo as well brought his own mask to his face and pushed himself up, letting a hand rest on Izaya's hip before bending down to grab the light that he had dropped. He turned it in his own hands clicking his tongue and stuffed it on his pocket after, mumbling something under his breath.

"Who threw that? It came skidding in from the hallway, and no one was there. It was like it was kicked." Shizuo grumbled, grabbing Izaya's camera from off the chair and handing it to him, shoving his hands into his pockets after readjusting the strap of his backpack on his left shoulder. His eyes were centered on Izaya, waiting for a reply from his partner.

"Shizuo, I don't know. I do know that someone else is here and is playing around with us. It's getting annoying, really." Izaya sighed. He was sure it was another person. That, or it was all in their heads. "Come. We have to regroup with the others." 

Heiwajima gave Izaya the look, before sigh himself, and shaking his head slightly in annoyance. He thought that this field trip was supposed to be a little less stressing than it currently was, and having other people there while they were there, the whole experience wasn't as private as he had hoped so. They would capture so much footage, Izaya would make it into a video, post it, and the rest of them could watch what Izaya had carefully picked and chose out of all the films that he would have stored in his SD cards. Now there was possibly another group that was going to ruin their experience.

Both teenagers walked into the hallway, Izaya a little more cautious than he was before, and has poked his head into the room across from the one that they had been in. Nothing had been in there, and it was relatively empty, so there was nothing left to dwell on the matter, and they turned to head back out. When they turned though, Izaya audibly caught his breath. The whole group had walked through a hole of the things that had been blocking the entrance, but now something rather heavy stood there, and not really friendly. The raven was the first one to walk to the entrance, and he tried to move things so that they could move out, but found it difficult, and there was a possibility that he could get buried under all the stuff. The black thing happened to be a filing cabinet, and it looked quite heavy, so they couldn't move it to get out and find the others. The thing was, that wasn't there before, and now it was. Izaya growled, putting down the chair he had managed to take down from the pile, but there wasn't anything else he could do unless he wanted to be buried alive. With a groan, Izaya walked back to the place that the floor had fallen through, looking down to see if he could jump down one floor, but surprise surprise, the floor from the other floor had fallen through. Backing up, Izaya rubbed at the back of his neck, sighing in defeat. Shizuo who had followed him, rolled his neck, popping it to relive himself just a little. 

"Now what?" It was Shizuo's voice that broke the momentary silence between them. Izaya let his shoulders slump, but didn't turn to look at the blond. Instead, he turned back on his heal, and head back to the entrance of the hallway, kicking the floor, analyzing. It wasn't like he hadn't been in this kind of situation before, alone he might add, but this was a little disconcerting. That black thing had appeared out of nowhere. Whoever was messing with them was going to get a black eye and blue balls from the raven himself. To give himself some relief, Izaya took off his book back and searched for the chair that he had taken down, to put his stuff on it, when he realized the chair wasn't there anymore. Looking around, Izaya noticed that the chair had been tipped over and up against the wall, no where near where he had put it. Without taking his eyes away from the chair, Izaya opened his mouth, turning his head to the side.

"Hey Shizu-chan? Did you happen to move this chair?" There was a gruff mumbled behind him, before he was able to make out what he had said.

"No."

With his eyes narrowing on the chair, the boy put his things down on the floor instead, but kept his camera. He walked to the closest room and kicked it open, looking into every crevice of the room, before repeating the same action again and again, until he had thoroughly looked into every room they already hadn't been in. 

"Alright you bastard. Where are you hiding?" Izaya could feel his fists clenching, and he ground his teeth, no longer able to contain his irritation. Shizuo picked up his backpack from the ground and walked to the male who stood in the center of the hallway, seething silently. "Come out." A hand was placed on the raven's shoulder, and he turned to look at the blond, to feel a soft pressure on his cheek. 

"Calm down, it's okay. We'll find a way out. " as he said those words, a rather eerie noise started in the hallway, but neither of the teenagers noticed as they were once again leaning into each other, a bigger hand cupping a smaller face. Before leaning in a little closer to capture the other's lips, Shizuo's eyes darted up to focus on a spot by the entrance. He didn't see it at first, but when he did, he froze. A disfigured figure that started to appear out of thin air was getting closer to them, and Shizuo froze, the eerie noise in the hallway finally reaching his ears, and he staggered away from the awaiting male, to only gasp when he felt his balance slightly falter when he hit the point in which the floor disappeared to a hole. Watching in horror at the figure approached Izaya, Shizuo moved automatically and dove for the male's arm, and threw the both of them in the room that the raven had previously shoved him in before. He locked the door and put the chair under the doorknob under it for a good measure. 

"What the hell, Shizuo?" The blond would have kissed the raven to shut him up like he did when they were alone, but he was intently looking at the door, his heartbeat overriding any other noise. "Shizuo? What the hell was that? I left my bag out there." At that, the other snapped his head towards the raven who seemed to be quite annoyed. He only clutched his camera, and Shizuo noticed that the must have dropped the other's bag while he had been freaking out. The other was about to remove the chair from the door when Shizuo yelped.

It didn't make sense. What was that? Did he actually see that? Was that a person? If that was a person, was that the one who was messing with them? Why the fuck are they always interrupted when they are about to kiss?

"Don't!" It startled the raven and he jumped, whipping his head to look at Shizuo, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. "I mean-"

"What happened out there? Why did you freak out?" 

Shizuo's mouth only opened and closed, not knowing what to say, while the other waited with his arms crossed, an eyebrow cocked, waiting for an answer. Yet, the older's hands got sweaty, just thinking about what was just outside the door. He hung his head, looking at his feet. After a shirt silence, he could hear the chair being removed from the doorknob and the creaking of the door opening. Shizuo's eyes were squeezed shut, waiting for a scream or a horrid noise, but nothing came. Soon, the sound of shoes shuffling closer made the blond look up, and Izaya stood there with his backpack over his shoulder, eyes still looking at Shizuo as if he had three heads. 

"We have to stop stalling. As much as this unfortunate happening of the floor falling, giving us the opportunity to make out in a creepy room in a creepy abandoned asylum, we kind of wasted it and I'm sure the others are waiting for us. Get your ass up and let's go." Mocha eyes watched as the raven went out of his sight, and was afraid of leaving the other alone in the same hallway in which he had seen that _thing_. When running back out, the raven was no where to be seen, and the blond started freaking out. He was about to call out when the others voice could be heard from another room. The relief that came off the other was in waves, and was glad to see the raven still in one piece. He was peering into a rather large.... hole in the wall, a hole that led to another... room?

"I don't know if this is just coincidence or-" Izaya didn't finish his sentence, as he stepped through it, before turning around with a smile on his face, bright, and all happy, like as if what happened just a few measly seconds prior didn't happen. Of coarse, Izaya hadn't seen it, but Shizuo had, so that was something. Even though he followed the younger into what seemed to be another hallway, Shizuo's mind kept thinking about the forming figure that appeared out of thin air. That couldn't have been real, right? That certainly was his mind, playing with him, absolutely, but, could the brain actually do something like that? 

It was silent for a few seconds as Shizuo wondered whether or not he should ask Izaya. The other was quite smart, so he was sure that the raven would have an answer for him, but what if he thought that he was weird? Nah, this is Izaya he's talking about, he surely wouldn't just abandon the blond because he was seeing things right?

"Izaya."

"Hm?" Izaya continued to look around. It seems that this hallways was caught off both sides, so this was probably used to be some sort of secret hallway.

"Will you hallucinate if you get really stressed?" The words rolled off the blond's mouth, watching the back of the others head before he turned around to give the other a look of somewhat curiosity.

"Why yes, actually. Too much anxiety can cause hallucinations that can cause further fear or other emotions. It doesn't mean that your crazy though. When people experience this and ask a doctor about it, it just shows that thy are still hanging onto reality even though the are experiencing such things. Why do you ask?" Izaya had stopped walking, his eyes searching the other, and the taller made that the other couldn't see his face.

"..... I was just wondering." Yes. Just 'wondering'. Wa she hallucinating because he was hungry? 

When they resumed walking, Shizuo felt this strong sense of paranoia, that he made sure to walk right beside Izaya, and even went as far that he made sure that their shoulder brushed every other step. Being in a group was so much better, he could have walked in the middle, and he would have made Izaya stay with him, they would be joking around, and Izaya would talk loudly over the group's noise at the camera, filling in about the things that happened while he wasn't recording. That would have defiantly be nice right about now. What would be even better was have Izaya's room all to themselves like every Friday, but this time he had to spend it with the whole group in a creepy, crazy adventure. 

They carried mentally disturbed people here before. Long before them, people in straight jackets and medical gowns would walk down the wings, people in lab coats and security guards with guns and tasers as well. People who would come to visit loved ones, and ones that were being released. People that died here before, ones that had been neglected, people that refused to help the broken. That was so sick. The poor people that suffered here. This environment was so negative, the walls and aura explained it themselves. He himself was going to go crazy if he didn't have something to distract him, and the only distraction that he needed was currently skipping, mumbling under his breath, and looking around frantically for a way out. What happened to get them there? Why did this happen? Why were they there?

The rooms they passed had graffiti in them, bras and single shoes in some of the rooms that had a bed in it. If making out here was Izaya's crazy idea, he couldn't imagin the people who proposed to have sex here. There were some bookbags that were left, blades and even some markers. There was a little girls dress even that was covered in something old and looked brown. Or was it red? More writing and they saw a few more dead rats. Some doors were off their hinges, and they saw a few more medical beds. Izaya took pictures of some interesting rooms, but it never took really long. When they stopped though, Shizuo would have his back against the wall, his eyes frantically searched for _something_. Sometimes there would be some random sudden coldness that seemed weird in the environment that they were in, but Shizuo would shrug it off. There would be a random brown liquid on the floor, and Shizuo would gag while Izaya would just laugh at the blond, telling him that he had such a soft belly. A certain area in the hallway had be quite clean, despite the rest of the area, which was seemingly weird. Their shadows on the wall stretched, distorting their proportions, making them look taller than they actually were. The light reflected off the wall, and tile, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the corridor, making it seem like there was more than just them there.

The exit wasn't anywhere to be seen, and Shizuo dreaded to go back into the other hallway, no matter if what he had seen was his imagination or not. He didn't believe in ghosts, truly, but that didn't necessarily mean that that was what he had seen back there. So they split up. Shizuo didn't like the thought of them splitting up either, but he wanted to get back to the group as fast as he could, and he begrudgingly let go of Izaya's waist to let him go the other way of the hallway. He told the other to scream of he saw something or needed help, and he made the other promise, so that was a little bit off his shoulders. The first so called room was another bathroom, and the mirror was missing. The doors to the lockers were bent in a weird way, making it look like someone had intentionally done that. When the blond stepped on glass, he was able to guess what had happened to the mirror that should have hung up over the dirty and rusty sink. He wouldn't have given the glass a second look, but he caught rusted red on the edges, and Shizuo backed away quickly, deciding to go check in the stalls. 

Inside there was drawing and words, once again, the 'they are watching you' accompanied with a large eye was in one of the stalls, and the star in a circle as well. The English six was written in red three times on the outer door of one of the stalls, and blood was smeared on the toilet seat, making Heiwajima cringe and a scratchy feeling start at his fingers. The windows were boarded there too, so he couldn't see outside and also caused the bathroom to be much darker than the other. At one point, he got scared of his own shadow, his hairs standing on end. 

"What the fuck." His voice echoes in the small space, and the echo sounded eerier than it should have, so with that, he left without looking back, once again steping out to the dark corridor. 

It was silent, like as if Izaya wasn't in another room, and he felt panic start to rise within him, but reluctantly decided to trust the other, and continue looking through the other rooms. The other rooms that he hadn't seen before consisted of overturned beds, more single shoes, and an article of female underwear. There was growl in one of the rooms, that made the teenager slightly yelp, to only realize it came from him. He was hungry, and all the suspense and panic of being separated from the rest of the group made his hunger strike a new point that day. Shizuo wasn't going to eat yet, he was going to wait until he met up with Izaya once again and sit down somewhere and eat a nutrition bar or a banana. His throat was also dry, thirst eating at him as well. Guess he had to wait either way, besides, he wouldn't be able to stomach food well if he didn't have the raven safely next to him. 

The next few rooms had entertaining pictures. Shizuo had laughed at some, and ran his fingers against the dry wall, and it came back with some dust; funny because he's sure that not many people go to that place. He found another bookbag on the floor, and it was soaked in some kind of dark liquid, so the blond quickly left that room, not exactly comfortable being in the same room with whatever was in it or what had happened to it. Being next to it just sent shivers up his spine for some apparent reason, and he did not want to find out as to why it did. So he left it there, not sparing it a glance, afraid that he might see something that he didn't want to see. Not like he would see an intestines sticking out of the bag - actually ew, that's a really disgusting thought no no no no no.

The rest of the rooms had been pretty much the same, just like every other part of the asylum, although each had its own element that made it intriguing in its own. So since he was done with his side of the hallway, Shizuo went to look for Izaya, which he has heart absolutely nothing from. No noise, no footsteps, no nothing. He was sure that Izaya would have been able to hear him laugh, slightly freak out, and his footsteps echoing in each room, but there was absolutely no noise from the other, and that was slightly worrying. Quickening his steps, Shizuo glanced into each room from the other side of the hallway, and when he saw no one, his blood went cold. He called out his name, to get no response. Thinking that Izaya had gone back to the previous corridor, Shizuo started to cautiously walk to the direction of the hole that led to the room that was connected to the hallway, to only hear a cracking noise from the far end of the corridor he had just been in as he was just stepping through the hole. His pivot towards the noise had been slow, adrenaline slowly starting to enter his veins, easily feeling his dry cold sweat once again act up. It was less then ten seconds, and he was already freaking out. 

"Izaya?" There was no other noise, while his voice echoed in the hallway, creating a creepy noise. His slow walk to the room was killing him, his fingers forming into a fist, ready to punch anything that wasn't Izaya.

"Izaya?" His call was more desperate, and as he rounded the room that he had heard the crack come from, a fast black moving figure ran right into him, and Heiwajima hissed, pulling back his arm to swing it forward, but his fist had stalled when he heard a groan of pain coming from the figure that had its head buried in his chest.

"You stupid idiot. Why the hell do you have such a hard chest?" The familiar voice caused Shizuo to lower his arm, and place his hands on the others shoulders to pull the raven away from his chest to look at him dead in the eye. 

"Are you fucking kidding me? Where the fuck were you? I thought you left me or something. You were completely silent." Shizuo fought to keep cool, feeling his hands shake. "What the fuck were you doing?"

Izaya's hand wrapped around his wrist, and sighed while doing so, slightly hunching, his camera in his other hand, the light blinking indicating that it was recording.

"I found a way, but it was through the courtyard. I had to make sure that the board was sturdy to walk on to-"

"Are you saying that you fucking climbed onto a piece of equipment that wasn't safe!? Izaya! The fuck is in your head?!" The older ground his teeth, anger boiling mixed with worry.

"Okay first of all, stop cursing so much. You sound like a delinquent. And two, it's okay. I've down this stuff before, and- don't give me that look. I know it doesn't mean I still can't hurt myself, I'm just saying that I know how to catch myself if I fall. Stop being such a worrywart." The blond's eyebrows were still furrowed, as he watched Izaya retract himself from his grip, walking into the room he had just walked out of. "This board leads to another ledge that leads to another part of the building, one level higher than we are right now." Izaya rest his foot on the edge of the window, letting his free arm rest on his knee, pointing at what he was taking about with his tripod. And he doesn't know what part of that isn't dangerous, as the column was rusted and everything, and it could snap at any second. Izaya was much lighter than him, so he might be the only one to walk across. "It'll be easy. We'll then find the others and rest."

"Yea, and before we do that, we stop to take a snack break." And make sure to not kill ourselves while crossing that shit...

Izaya climbed onto the edge of the window that had broken glass, and took a step onto the column that was conveniently there, and he slowly straightened himself slowly and took another balenced step forward. Shizuo followed when the raven was a few good feet away from him, but still hesitated when he was about to step onto the column. He was not a big fan of heights. If he fell, he would fall three flights. That wouldn't hurt him, and maybe even kill him if he did even the slightest wrong move.

Walking the column across was scary, to admit, but it was less nerve wrecking once Izaya got to the ledge carefully. It made it easier to walk, no longer worrying that the column would snap and both of them would fall and most likely die. At the ledge, they shuffled sideways until they were vale to climb in through another broken window, once again on steady safe grounds. Shizuo was immensely happy that he was far away from _that_ corridor.

As said, both teenagers plopped down at a corner, and took out a snack, and a water bottle. Their masks were off in a second, and Shizuo almost drank a full bottle, before Izaya stopped him and told him to be wise with his water supply. He obeyed and went to eat his snack: an apple. Izaya just nibbled some crackers looking down the hallway that they were in. It was better lit, and they really didn't need all that help from the light on top of the camera, so they could lower the power of the light and save for later on when they really needed it. And since they were plopped down, Izaya talked to the camera, and he playfully zoomed into the blond's face.

"That was quite the adventure. We'll regroup with the rest of the group shortly, and we will stay in our room, do some activities and go to sleep, and then go back home in the morning. Yes, we had an unfortunate occupancy, but everything will get better! No need to worry. It's not like we will leave this place with lesser people than we originally came in."

Damn had they wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for such delay! I had a volleyball tournament on Saturday, and I had many tests. I stayed up late on Saturday although I was tired to deliver this to you guys sooner. I am so sorry.
> 
> The original play was to have this out by my Bday (Halloween), but hahaha that isn't happening.


	4. Eyes on Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a female scream, loud and clear; imposible to ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for such a long wait.

"Yumasaki, if you touch that, I will personally kick you out that window." Togusa groaned, messaging his temples, as a headache had started a while ago from having to deal with the otaku duo. They had gone around and wrote on any wall that they thought was cool, yelling and running down corridors, and they had slipped on some water, in which resulted them in almost falling face forward, but Walker had caught himself before he could land on Izaya's camera. Erika got a bruise on her knee, and complained that her new thigh high black socks got dirt on the knees. Her blue uniform skirt had slightly ridden up, and Togusa had to constantly remind her to pull it down. Her white bottom up shirt was slightly dirty at the edges, the blue and white sailor uniform getting wrinkled with all her jumping and running.

Walker's appearance wasn't any better. He had wrinkles in his blue blazer and pants, his white shirt even worse. His backpack was bouncing every step, and his shoe lace was untied. It was pointless to remind him to tie it up, because it would just loosen up a moment later.

To say in the least, they were a mess. Togusa really wished that Kadota would be there. He shouldn't complain though, at least he has people to be with. Yagiri-San was all alone in this creepy place, and that was concerning. She was a tough one, she would be able to knock anyone unconscious if needed, she would survive the night. His phone still had no signal, and he would constantly look over his shoulder, feeling extremely paranoid, something he didn't feel when he was with the group earlier. This was a sudden feeling, like the moment his group was far away from the others that he couldn't hear a thing coming from other hallways apart from their shoes echoing in the corridors. 

At first, it seemed so easy, to regroup that is. All they had to do was follow the halls until they found a stairwell and go down to the room, then wait for everyone else to come and they would do some stuff to fall asleep later from exhaustion. It wasn't that easy. Like Izaya said before, this level had a different floor plan, and they often ran into dead ends, in which they would have to find different ways to proceed. Sometimes it felt like they were going in circles. Damn this building and its large size. Maybe it would be better if they climbed out of a window and clumped up to the roof, go through the door that should be connected to a stairwell, which would give them easy access to the second floor. It was unsafe though, and Togusa really didn't know how good the otaku duo were at climbing. The last thing he needed was for Erika to misplace her weight and slip to fall and kill her self to a blow to the head. Cringing at the thought, Togusa let himself slowly flow back into the present, his conscience slowly slipping from him due to his heavy eyelids. He should have slept better last night knowing about this overnight expedition. 

Fuck the whole thing about being safe and getting back to the group, where the fuck was Walker and Erika?! Letting out a panicked sigh, Tiguas frantically looked around him, going a full 360 degree turn three times before dread fell upon his shoulder.

"Izaya is going to murder me."

_"It's not like we should be separated during our stay, but in any case we do, always stay with your group... Strength and safety is in groups... Like I said before, even if the group breaks up, stay with your designated group, I can't stress this enough."_

Fragments of what Izaya had said before when they first entered the building swirled in the dreadlocked man's head, his heart beat going faster and faster with each rushed step he took in his attempt to find his friends. His breath came fast, and the paranoia got worse, like if eyes were staring hole into his back. Checking to make sure, he looked over his shoulder again to see nothing.

"Erika! Walker! Where the hell did you guys go?" Togusa yelled out, looking over his shoulder again, thinking that his friends would magically appear out of thin air, his heart lodged in his throat making it hard for him to breath. His hands got clammy and twitchy, his wish for the gang stronger than ever, his fear spiking to a new level since he first stepped foot in the asylum. 

This is messed up. They are messed up. This expedition is messed up. He shouldn't have come. He shouldn't have let others come. He shouldn't have let his mind even think about coming. Izaya may be a pro, but the rest of them were new to this. He was alone when he did these things, they weren't, so being separated was taking a toll on all of them since they didn't have their professional guide with them. Damn, Shizuo is lucky, he has the pro with him, while he is currently freaking out and wanting to scream out in frustration.

He shouldn't have let his mind wonder. He shouldn't have let his guard down. He shouldn't have lay those two go ahead of him. So many regrets.

Its okay. Its okay. Its okay. Its okay. Its okay.

The mantra continued in his head, over and over and over, trying to overrun his fear of the unknown.

He was probably overreacting. They couldn't have gone that far without his noticing. Even if they were sly, they weren't that smart. All he had to do was think. Where would anime dweebs hide while they let their other friend hyperventilate in a dark abandoned hallway with no light or safety. What would they find interesting enough to leave their kind behind and not tell him that they were going to go in a different direction then the one that they were currently going in.

The feeling of a hand on Togusa's shoulder made him scream.

 

 

 

"Kadota, are you sure we are going the right way?" Shinra prodded, his hands in his pockets as he trailed behind the brunette with Celty clinging to his arm for dear life.

"I'm going to be honest. No."

Of coarse he wouldn't know, he wasn't a damn GPS or Izaya. Who knows if they were even going in circles, or maybe just the completely wrong way. 

"As long as we find a staircase then I don't really care where we are going." Maybe they should have jumped through the hole, that way, they would all be together. Let the guys first and then the girls, so they land softer. Be gentlemen. Sure it was two stories of a jump, but he is sure they could manage. Except Izaya, he had a fragile looking body, but even he knows to never underestimate the raven. He is full of surprises. 

Behind him, he heard Celty stumble once more, in which he sighed once more. They need to find a way to get back faster, they can't keep this up all night. He doesn't even think he is capable of that before he lose his mind. It's like the madness from the patients before was getting to him. Just remembering the patients from before, and what Izaya had told them, made chills run down the bespectacled man's spine. 

All the tormented souls that had been here, locked up.

Forgotten.

How could people do that to their own kind? As a doctor in training, it made Shinra sick to the stomach and his heart ache, that people who called them specialized doctors did this to people who were in great need- not only medically but for a friend. These kind of people needed moral support, not to be chained to a wall or strapped to a chair to have others test on their brains while they writhed and screamed in pain and for help. For others to even think that the people with mental issues had been casted away by God, people who 'deserved' to be tortured and die, it was absurd! 

Humanity was such a disgusting race, that they would throw another persons life away so that their own could be peaceful. The people who were sent to these places back then were better off in their homes locked up in their rooms with familiarity rather than be in here, away from their tests to 'help' these people. 

The heavy atmosphere practically weighed Shinra down, his shoulders seeming to become heavier, his mood shifting. A sudden coldness enveloped the underground doctor, causing a sigh to escape him as he brought up his hands to rub them against his arms. How strange. A sudden change in temperature. No, maybe it was his brain tricking him. His thoughts weren't making anything easier for himself nor others. When Celty's hand touched the males shoulder, he turned his head to the mute girl, giving a reassuring smile. 

That's right. He had to stay stable for Celty. 

The hallway that they had been walking down for some time now didn't seem to ever end. Had they even taken any turns as he was lost in his mind? Most likely not. 

Shinra continued to walk forward, not seeing anything as he let his mind wonder once more. He never got to know for sure what he was thinking before he walked right back into Kadota. 

"Oof!" After smacking into the other, Shinra took two steps back, his right hand coming to his face to fix his glasses that had gone askew after slamming into the other raijin student. Confused as hell, Shinra coughed out as dust made its way past his lips and to stick to the back of his throat, as Shinra stepped to the side to peer over Kadota's shoulder to stop in his tracks. His breath caught in his throat, irritating it further.

Before them was the hole that they had been walking away from for some time now.

"Kadota, did you lead us back here on purpose?" Shinra asked through his suddenly raspy voice, in which he brought a hand up to his lips to cough to clear up his throat, before Celty handed him a bottle of water for him to sip from. This must be another reason Izaya had told all of them to keep their masks on. He should have listened.

"I.... w...." Kadota would start a sentence to only stop, his hand coming up to thread through his hair. "We haven't made any turns...." His voice was breathless. Shinra quickly stepped in to pat the others shoulder.

"Maybe it's a different hole?" As soon as he said it, Celty tapped his shoulder holding up her phone to him, the brightness hurting his eyes but he said nothing of it. As his eyes finished reading the characters presented to him, his eyes slipped over to another side of the whole, in which he saw a nutrition bar. With closer inspection, he noticed it was one that Shizuo had brought for the overnight trip. That had also been the side the strange duo had been on after the floor collapsed. 

"It's the same one." Kadota spoke Shinra's thought, in which the other brunette once more ran his fingers through his hair, a sigh leaving his lips and he looked down. "This makes no sense. We made no turns. And this is the same hole from before, no doubt about it."

They stayed silent for a few moments until Kadota hummed, before looking over his shoulder.

"What?" Confused, Shinra's eyebrows furrowed.

"I didn't say anything." Shinra said slowly, his hands digging into the pockets of his white lab coat, now dusted with debris and dust.

"You touched my arm," Kadota said in a matter of fact tone, his eyebrows raising. At this, Shinra turned at Celty, in which she shook her head before he turned to the taller brunette and shook his head.

"Neither of us touched you." 

Silence fell on the group once more, before Kadota sighed for the umpteenth time, his hands coming to his hips and rested there, shaking his head to clear his head.

"It's just getting to us." Looking up to the side where Namie should have ended up, an idea popped into his head. "You know...." his eyes scanned the area around, before landing back to the other side. "I could make it." At this, Shinra shifted his gaze from Celty to the male that still had his back to them. Shinra knew exactly what the other meant.

"No." Finally, Kadota turned to look at Shinra, his eyes wide. Before he could reply, Shinra started again. "No. You can't. We'll just turn back around and find another way. Through a window or another wall, doesn't matter, but you won't jump over that." 

"Why not. I can. I do long jumping in track, so I know I can." At this, Shinra said nothing, he just crossed his arms while looking up at the other. Kadota just shook his head before he walked past the shorter male, before he stopped to eye the distance of the hole. Kadota really wasn't serious over jumping the hole right? One misstep and he could fall to his death. If Kadota knew this, he said absolutely nothing as he kicked his leg back to start running. 

As he neared the edge, Kadota jumped, but his breath caught as he realized he wouldn't make it, just as Shinra had said. It was such an easy jump too. His eyes widened in horror as he felt his body freeze up, and he felt himself falling. Closing his eyes to calm himself before he hit the floor hard enough to kill him, his back came into contact with the floor, the air being knocked out of his lungs, forcing his eyes open. Before stood Shinra, a knowing look in his eyes.

"I told you to not jump over the whole." At this, Kadota laughed, his heart pounding in his chest rapidly, hard enough to rip through his rib cage and right into his hands. 

"I'm glad Celty caught that on camera too."

 

 

 

Namie was beyond annoyed. 

She was about ready to rip Izaya's trachea out the moment she saw him. Of coarse he had to drag her out to one of his stupid hobby things. How did he even enjoy this? There was dusts everywhere, dirt just about in every crevice here, and she had to admit, it was creepy as fuck. She did not enjoy this at all. Why had she accepted? 

Her footfalls echoed all around her, making her feel like she wasn't alone. 

For quite some time know, she felt like someone was watching her. She wasn't normally a paranoid person, but this place gave her the creeps, and of _course_ , she had to end up alone while everyone else had a partner. She felt like Izaya had done it on purpose too- to end up with Shizuo alone. Namie wouldn't be surprised if they ended up fucking on one of the rusty beds they had seen before. Damn him.

Another chill wracked her frame, so she rubbed her arms for warmth. The hallway she had been walking down was pretty dark, and being one of the people who hadn't brought a flashlight - to be able to fit all her makeup - she used the camera clip-on flashlight, lighting her way, watching her step for anything that could harm her. For the fifth time in the past three minutes, Namie looked over her shoulder behind her to see nothing yet again. She could still feel the eyes piercing her back.

No one was with her, and she knew this. She had turned into another ward, where she had climbed a few steps to reach the rest of the hallway. The light a few paces away started randomly flickering and swaying, causing the ravenette to stop in her track in which she looked over her shoulder once more. Still, not one soul. Another shiver wrecked her body, her attention to the light overhead until the camera in her hand started beeping. Looking down, she looked at the red light, announcing foreign movement that it already want familiar with. This sent another shiver through Namie.

'It was just the swinging of the light,' Namie told herself as she eyed the randomly flickering swinging light. 

She would _so_ kill Izaya after this.

Taking off her book bag she took out a bottle to sip from as her mouth was slowly going dry. While she did so, she leaned on a wall, her eyes scanning the area around her, still feeling as if eyes were glued to her nape. Her bare arms had goosebumps that she couldn't rub away, so she kicked off the wall and continued walking down that way, hoping to find some staircase. Walking around some more, she found a room with a hole in the wall in which she climbed through to fall into another room. When her eyes met the wall, she stepped back, her eyes slightly widening as she saw the dark writing on the wall. It was a dark color, and there were words written on the wall messily, as if it had been a child that had finger painted them on. 

Tearing her eyes off the ilegible writing, she made her way to the door in which she tried to open to have it crack under the pressure. Huffing, she pulled a little harder, getting the same result. Placing the still recording camera down, she placed both hands on the doorknob in which she sighed, not noticing that the red light on the camera was beeping again. When she pulled, the door easily opened and she fell back with a yelp, her butt hitting the floor as her hands flew behind her to stop her fall. Before her stood another dark hallway, empty and void of anyone else. Standing up and brushing herself off throughly, she went and reached for the camera before she poked her head out of the doorway, looking both ways. Satisfied, she stepped out and started walking the opposite way that she had been before, before she passed by a large window that had holes and boards all around it. The sight for some reason, reminded her of her sweet younger brother, Seiji. Sighing with a smile, she couldn't wait to get back home and spend the weekend with him on the couch watching movies. Motivated, Namie continued walking, before she realized that her lips had also gone dry.

She made a note to look for a bathroom, as she forgot to take a mirror around with her. 

For some reason, the paranoia only grew in this hallway, and her breath started coming fast. Her shivers got worse, but she continued on her way, ignoring anything and everything. She just wanted to go home. She should have never made that bet. So annoying.

With her footfalls seeming to sufficate her, Namie's tongue darted out to lick her lips, saying to herself that she wasn't nervous of the feeling of being watched intensified, but because her lips really were dry. Not long after she found a bathroom, not too far from her, and she quickened her pace, ignoring how her steps seemed to drown her in the quiet hallway. As she stepped in, a smell from one of the stalls made her uncomfortable, like as if something was decaying; quick to ignore it, she placed her bag down and looked at her reflection in the dirty mirror, before she propped the camera up in a way that shown on the mirror and help her see herself better. Pulling down the mask, she fixed stray strands of her hair and leaned into the dirty mirror, putting all her weight onto the glass sink as she studied her lips. Careful to touch one, Namie saw that her lips hadn't taken that much damage, just dry and a bit chapped, nothing her favorite moisturizing lipstick could fix. Stepping back, she fixed her uniform before huffing, ignoring how the sense of being watched was stronger than ever as the flesh on her legs also started to rise, her breath coming faster. Once more, Namie told herself it was nothing.

Kneeling down quickly, the raven dug through her bag, digging deep looking for the lipstick that would help her with the slight burn on her lips. She really hoped that she hadn't left it back in the room, where she would then quicken her pace to meeting up with the others. She hated when her lips dried out. With her water bottle in hand, she drank from it again before capping it and placing it back in her bag before she checked the front pockets, where she found exactly what she was looking for. Sighing in happiness, Namie uncapped it turning and getting back up to look at her reflection.

As her eyes met the mirror, her eyes widened in a flash and her blood ran ice cold, and she let out a toe curling scream.

 

 

 

Their footsteps combined were loud as they walked down the hallway, one slightly in front of the other. Izaya practically skipped, leaving Shizuo to follow grumbling, his mind elsewhere.

No matter how much he tried to ignore it, he couldn't forgot the eerie sound and the figure coming out of no where. Had he even really seen that? Maybe he already lost his sanity and his mind was conjuring up the worst things to scare the shit out of him. But how did that explain....? No, it's not worth thinking about it. Izaya was perfectly fine either way, so he shouldn't care. Either way, Shizuo tossed a glance over his shoulders as his hands curled into fists in his pant pockets, before he turned around to watch Izaya a little further up. How could Izaya like these places? From what he could see, Izaya could make a damn living off of this hobby, especially since he finally hit a million subscribers on YouTube. How had he even come to like this shit? Shizuo is sure he has asked before, but he forgot.

"Hey, Izaya." Izaya stopped skipping to turn his body to Shizuo to only walk backwards. This made Shizuo extremely anxious, so he started walking faster so if Izaya were to fall, he could catch him.

"Have you ever.... seen things on your urban expeditions?" Shizuo had no idea how to word it exactly. It was weird, and he didn't want Izaya to think that he was loosing his mind like the rest of the people who had been held here.

"Seen things? What do you mean?" Oh of course Izaya had to make it harder for him. At this, Shizuo only shrugged, still not sure how to explain.

"You know... like.... things that don't- or shouldn't exist." Izaya stopped at Shizuo's words, his head tilting. 

"You mean like urban legends?" 

"Yes- n-no! Like..." he didn't want to say the word that his mind kept supplying for him, but maybe it was the only way to get Izaya to understand.

"Like a...." The last word was said quieter than the rest, causing Izaya to lean in.

"Like a what?"

"Like a g...." 

"Shizu-chan, you have to speak up. Really."

"Like a ghost! Okay!" Shizuo's face turned beat red, only becoming redder when Izaya started laughing at him. Laughing!

"Oh Shizu-chan, do you really believe in those things?" It was as if a mother was scolding her child. How ridiculous. 

Shizuo huffed, his hands landing on the others hips drawing him closer, before he looked over his shoulder once more to be sure.

"Then how do you explain everything that has happened before?" Shizuo whispered, as if it were a taboo subject.

"It was all our imagination." Izaya whispered back, his arms easily draping over the blond's shoulders, his free hand playing with the blond fluff at the base of his neck, "we're not kids anymore, Shizu-chan." The weight in the ravens pocket contradicted his words, but he let it slide, needing to keep Shizuo in his right mind. Shizuo only hummed in response, lowering his head to try and peck the lips before him practically begging to be ravished. Just as he was to claim his reward, a door not to far from them slammed shut, causing both to jump. Tightening his grip on the younger, Shizuo looked up into the slightly moon lit hallway to see no one, or rather, nothing. 

"Hello?" Cautiously, Shizuo removed his hands from the other and walked forward to the door that he thought had been open before. Knocking after no reply, he opened the door to to an empty dusty room that was sealed off well.

"It was the wind." 

Shizuo would have accepted that if the windows hadn't been boarded, but they were all sealed, and so was the inside of this room. Ignoring the suddenly cold feeling that overcame him, he stepped back walking over to Izaya and grabbing him by the arm, walking faster. Suddenly the hallway was less more welcoming, a heavy pressure weighing down his shoulder and his throat clogging up. It was only a few seconds before he heard Izaya whisper in his ear.

"Remember me." Shizuo stopped and turned to looked at the shorter, confusion written all over his face. 

"What?" 

"I didn't say anything." After hearing this, Shizuo turned back around and started walking faster, breaking out in a cold sweat. He could feel Izaya struggling but he kept moving, feeling the dread worsen. At the end of the hallway he tuned a sharp left, before he felt himself bump into someone. Stepping back and opening his eyes, he was going to say sorry to only find open air before him. The blond's skin crawled and he continued going, feeling his heart beat loudly in his ears. 

'It's all my imagination. All my imagination. It's my imagination...'

The hallway that they were was very dirty, a dark sticky liquid running down the sides of the walls and collecting, while there were broken windows and rusty doorways staring into rooms that held nothing but trash. As his eyes were trained to the far hallway at the intersection, he saw a figure run quickly by before disappearing once more and that was when Shizuo had to take a break. He stopped abruptly, in which Izaya ran into his back, yelping.

'It's only my imagination. I'm seeing things. None of this is real. It's all pretend.' He knew he wasn't seeing these things. He was scared that's all, so his mind was making stuff up to give him a reason to be scared. Ghosts weren't real, and nothing else but their group was in here. They were safe and no harm would come to their group. Shizuo is just panicking because the group had been broken up- but everyone was fine and they would all see each other soon.

"Shizu-chan what the hell has gotten into you? Look, let's take a bre-"

"No. Not here."

"What do you mean 'not here'?" Izaya ran a hand down his face while groaning, before he looked at Shizuo in the eyes. "Let us find a staircase, and the we can rest, okay?" Not even waiting for an answer from the other, Izaya started walking down the hallway. Shizuo could feel the panic rise and he made sure to stay close to the raven, his eyes darting everywhere at once. Had he been the only one to see it? Had Izaya not see the pers- thing? He didn't even question when he had bumped into... that. He was extremely uncomfortable, he just wanted to get out of here. He wasn't gonna sleep here feeling as if every movement he makes was being watched. 

As the walked further down the hall, they tuned another corner. Just as they were turned, a repeatably loud slamming sound could be heard, echoing in the dark place, sending shivers up both of the boys, Shizuo's hand tightening on the other unconsciously. They completely ignored how two of the rooms had perfectly working lights, as there was nothing in them. They both ignore how the lights would flicker and slightly sparked after they walked by.

It was when they heard a scream that they both stopped. It was a female scream, loud and clear; imposible to ignore. It sounded as if the person was being tortured, and Izaya would be lying if he said a whimper hadn't threatened to spill. 

Worst part, was that it was coming from the hallway they were currently in. 

It was coming from across the hall from a closed room, so Shizuo ran and opened the door to see what it was, only for the screaming to stop once the door was burst open. Inside wasn't a female in excruciating pain, but a symbol painted on the wall, in a horrifying looking liquid. On the floor were halfway burnt candles, and in the middle was a large bundle covered by what seemed to be a dark fabric. The smell that hit Shizuo almost made him empty out his stomach of the snack that he had before. Quick to close the door, the blond rested his back on the graffitied door, watching Izaya who had curious eyes focused on him.

"I'm not staying in this hallway any longer." With that, Shizuo took Izaya by the arm and was off to find a staircase, not noticing the shadow not to far from the raven before, hidden in the seemly burnt room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may know, this book was supposed to be a Halloween story, but some shit got in the way and it wasn't finished. 
> 
> I've been working hard the past year to write this short chapter, (and no I'll admit 4/5 of this was written in one day). I sacrificed sleepless nights by watching paranormal vlogs and shows, reading articles, and listening to some horrifying audio. 
> 
> Also, death will start so keep your eyes peeled for that. 
> 
> I will try to work harder to get more chapters out, but u currently have three books that need all my attention. 
> 
> Sorry for not giving you the Shizaya kiss yet. I promise something spicy later >_>
> 
> See a grammar mistake? Notify me!

**Author's Note:**

> I am scared of watching paranormal stuff, but lately I've been watching urban expositions, and I thought that it was so interesting seeing what people actually find in those places, such as fresh satanic rituals, dead bodies, and weird garbage. I just had to write this :)
> 
> See a grammar mistake? Notify me!


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